The technical installation is preferably a combustion system for generating electric energy.
Technical installations generally comprise a plurality of components which, for example, either each implement a specific function of the technical installation or collectively perform a specific function.
An example of a technical installation in which components performing different functions interwork is, for example, a power plant for generating electrical energy. To be able to generate electrical energy in a technical installation of this type, the interaction of numerous components, each fulfilling a different task, is necessary:
The turbines, generators, protective systems and control system should be cited here as examples of the most important components. Efficient operation of a technical installation of said type is only possible if the use of the components mentioned is coordinated.
In modern technical installations, said interaction between the components of the technical installation is usually coordinated and monitored by a computer-aided control system. In this case the degree of automation is often very high, so human interventions in the operation of the technical installation are only necessary if the automatic controller is required to deal with a current operating state of the technical installation for which no solution or procedure is provided in the control programs of the control system. This may for example comprise problem incidents which could not be taken into account in every detail when the control system was designed, but can also relate to operational transitions during operation of the technical installation which, though in themselves simple from a human viewpoint, often can only be mapped as engineering control-related programs with a considerable amount of effort. This may be the case, for example, whenever a plurality of possible operating states can occur during the operation of the technical installation and the aim is for it to be possible to reach a desired operating state from each of these operating states.
A control program would then have to contain associated control instructions for each of these possible operating states in order to go to the desired operating state. The capturing of all possible operating states of a technical installation in a control program is often not possible in advance, so that in some cases the operating personnel of the technical installation have to take over control and operate the components of the technical installation manually.
The problems described above are similar in the case of a technical installation in which a number of components interwork in order to perform a certain function. An example of a technical installation of this type is a combustion system for generating electrical energy, which system comprises a number of burners arranged in a combustion chamber. In this case the burners are designed to be used in such a way that the fuel supplied is consumed as efficiently as possible in order to generate a required amount of electrical energy and to operate the installation economically. Furthermore, the aim should be to operate an installation of this type in a resource-friendly manner, which objective can be achieved for example by uniform distribution of the firing in the combustion chamber.
In order to use the fuel supplied as efficiently as possible it is necessary, in particular when starting up and shutting down the technical installation and in the partial load operating range—that is to say when the demand is less than the maximum possible amount of electrical energy that can be generated by the combustion system and not all the burners are firing simultaneously—, to switch the burners on or off selectively in such a way that the most uniform possible distribution of firing in the combustion chamber is ensured at every point in time in the operation of the technical installation.
Real-world operation of many power plants reveals that, for example in the case of the solution to the aforementioned problem of uniform distribution of firing in a combustion chamber, automatic switching on and off of the main burners is often dispensed with, because the logic or step controllers typically used for accomplishing such tasks can only be implemented with a very great amount of overhead, while the control programs that may be used for such purposes are also very complicated. The reason for the high overhead is that when a combustion system having a plurality of burners is in operation, practically every operating state between no load and full load, including the associated starting-up and shutting-down operations, may occur. A control program would then have to be able to execute corresponding control instructions for each of these numerous operating states in order to ensure efficient operation of the technical installation.
In order to avoid, at least in part, the described problem of high overhead, use is made in many power plants of logic and step controllers in which corresponding control commands are provided only for a subset of all the possible operating states. However, by this deliberate restriction to defined operating cases, controllers of said type have little flexibility and human intervention continues to be necessary for all those operating cases for which no control commands are provided in the controllers. In order to solve, for example, the problem of uniform distribution of the firing in a combustion chamber of a combustion system, solutions are also conceivable in which additional measuring devices are provided, for example for measuring the temperature profile in the combustion chamber, in order then to evaluate these measurements and consequently control use of the burners.
A disadvantage in this case is that additional devices such as, for example; the said measuring devices for determining the temperature profile, are necessary. Furthermore, these additional measurements have to be evaluated in order to derive from them control commands for use of the burners. The additional overhead is in this case often considerable. Moreover, potential sources of trouble are imposed on the technical installation due to the addition of further measuring devices which, in the event that they do not function, can lead to the shutdown of the technical installation.
WO02/052199 discloses a generic device (see FIG. 1) by means of which economical operation of a technical system consisting of multiple components is achieved in that each component that is placed into or taken out of operation continuously triggers an assessment of at least one other component by means of a value, the values of each component are added together, and the added values are used to determine which components are to be activated or deactivated next.
The methods and devices disclosed in this publication permit startup and/or shutdown commands to be determined for components on the basis of a current operating state of the components, with the result that a desired operating state of the technical installation is reached. In the case of a firing plant, for example, a symmetrical flame pattern is formed by the burners used.
This is achieved in that each component is assigned at least one numerical value in relation to its arrangement in the technical installation, together with at least one further numerical value which comprises an operating state of the technical installation. A total numerical value is then determined for each component by summation, so that it can be determined, based on the totaled numerical values of the components, which components are to be placed into or taken out of operation next.
A disadvantage in this case is that, starting from an installation that is out of service (all components are out of operation) or starting from an operating situation in which all components of the technical installation are in operation, a number of options exist in relation to which components are to be put into or taken out of operation next. Quite generally, there are usually also further operating states of the technical installation, starting from which a number of startup or shutdown variants equivalent to one another are possible.
In such cases a method and a device according to WO02/052199 cannot unequivocally specify which components are to be switched on or off next in order to reach a desired operating state.